Williamsburg Journal; Symbolic Boundary Begets a Real Disagreement

By MICHAEL BRICK

Published: May 11, 2003

Correction Appended

One of the wires was strung tautly across the intersection of Williamsburg and Hooper Streets on poles that were at least 15 feet tall. This way it could not be torn down easily.

The men who want the wires to come down were marching in the streets yesterday, and the men who want the wires to stay up joined them. The women stayed on the sidewalk. They were not allowed to mingle with the men. It is a rule.

There are a lot of rules in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that is home to a number of Orthodox Jewish sects, whose interpretations of various rules of Talmudic law often differ. Sometimes this gives rise to disputes that can seem arcane to outsiders. Such is the dispute over the wires.

For the most part, the sects in Williamsburg agree that an observant Jew is not allowed to carry anything from a private domain, like a house, to a public domain, like a sidewalk, during the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

But some Orthodox rabbis and their supporters argue that an exception can be made for those who carry things outside a private domain as long as they stay within symbolic boundaries marked, in the Williamsburg dispute, by wires. The area within the symbolic boundaries is known as an eruv.

Other rabbis and their supporters, however, assert that eruvs are not legitimate and that observant Jews are forbidden from carrying anything outside a private domain on the Sabbath, period.

Rarely do disputes over Talmudic law result in an organized march, and more rarely still does such a march take place in Williamsburg on the Sabbath, which is traditionally devoted to rest and contemplation.

So yesterday's short shared march of hundreds of men and boys -- some of whom want the wires, and the eruv, and some of whom do not -- made for an unusual spectacle.

The dispute has been growing for months, said a deputy police inspector, Larry Nikunen. At first, those who opposed the eruv would simply pull the wires down, he said. But the eruv's supporters restrung them in places that were hidden or hard to reach. Now the opponents have ''redirected their attention to the people who put them up,'' Inspector Nikunen said.

Five people were arrested on disorderly conduct charges at an initial impromptu demonstration on April 26, he said. No one was arrested at yesterday's march, which was heavily advertised by small flyers that appeared throughout the neighborhood alongside other signs written in Hebrew advertising neighborhood events.

Several men who opposed the eruv, including Israel Brody, stated their case simply. ''It would look like any other day, a Sunday or a Monday,'' said Mr. Brody, who, it should be noted, would not give his name until a reporter promised that he would not write the name down but would instead memorize it. Mr. Brody explained that under his interpretation of Talmudic law, he could not cause someone else -- even the non-Jewish reporter -- to write something on the Sabbath because writing is considered work and work is forbidden.

Other men, like Simon Rosen, were equally circumspect in their support for the eruv. ''There is a law for that, a command,'' Mr. Rosen said.

Mr. Rosen was quickly shouted down by a crowd of men, most speaking Yiddish. Around each man who stopped to give his opinion, dozens of other men gathered until there were circles of supporters and opponents all pressed against one another and all arguing at once.

''They don't tolerate different ideas,'' a man who identified himself as Moshe Weiss said of the eruv's opponents. ''Look at the commotion they cause when he says a different idea.''

Photo: Hundreds of Orthodox Jews expressed opinions yesterday in the dispute, which concerns what they may do outdoors on the weekly day of rest. (Dith Pran/The New York Times)

Correction: May 22, 2003, Thursday An article on May 11 about a disagreement among Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, over a symbolic boundary known as an eruv -- within which objects may be carried outside the home on the Sabbath despite the overall prohibition against work -- referred imprecisely to the issue. Certain rabbis and their supporters assert that the Williamsburg eruv is not legitimate and that Williamsburg's observant Jews are thus forbidden to avail themselves of it. Their opposition does not apply to every eruv or to observant Jews elsewhere.